WANNA ROAD TRIP?

Are you ready for a road trip like you've never seen before? Then hop in and buckle up for Home Office Highway!

This three-week voyage is putting wheels on the perfect hi-tech mobile office. Functional, informative, liberating & fun, it features three kids, two adults, one teched-out, Internet-connected RV-turned-home-office – with almost 3,000 miles of America to be explored and a new way to work to be chronicled.

Driven by Jeff Zbar, the Chief Home Officer, Home Office Highway shines headlights on a whole new "remote" office.

An interesting turn: some 69% of us here in the States support a paid vacation law; a bunch of those want three weeks or more each year. The obvious question: What the heck would we do with that vacation, since many of us aren’t using the vaca time The Man gave you in the first place.

This isn’t about The Haves whining about not using what they’ve got. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says one in four get no paid vacation. Not surprisingly, around half of men and women said they take work on vacation.

No home officer workers here, apparently.

WTF, mate? If you earn $52,000 a year (admittedly simple math so this career journalist can compute sans abacus), and you don’t take the two weeks you have coming to you, that’s like handing the bossman back two Gs at year’s end.

Are you people insane?

An interesting turn: some 69% of us here in the States support a paid vacation law; a bunch of those want three weeks or more each year. The obvious question: What the heck would we do with that vacation, since many of us aren’t using the vaca time The Man gave you in the first place.

This isn’t about The Haves whining about not using what they’ve got. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says one in four get no paid vacation. Not surprisingly, around half of men and women said they take work on vacation.

That was the premise of Home Office Highway. Vacations don’t always come when you want. And if you wait for the right block of time to come (if it comes at all), it may never arrive. So why not take a vacation, and weave some work into it.

As a home officer, I’ve never lacked vacation. We take boatloads of vacations — cruises, weekenders to Southwest Florida, three-week excursions in an RV.

Just as no man on his deathbed ever said, “Man, if I only had one more day in the office,” and another common mocking refrain goes, “You see no hearses with luggage racks,” I guess there’s no use for unspent vacation days Up There. Your boss won’t eulogize you as “The guy whom I made 20 grand off of because he refused to take vacation.” And your spouse and kids won’t look back and say, “Remember that time we took that vacation, and Dad was still at his desk when we got back…”

Take your vacation, people. Look in your calendar. Find an open weekend. Schedule it as your own. And don’t cave in when the weekend approaches and you think, “I have to crank out that deadline, or else…” Or else what, exactly? You’ll have to deliver it… Early? On Monday? Some other time?

So what if you have to pack up the laptop, the broadband access card, and do a little work during the weekend. Or do none at all. The work will get done. The question is: When those two Mondays come (three, if those 69% of us get our way), what will you have to show for the weekend that preceded them?

Hopefully a suntan, a batch of images on Flickr, a dent in the credit card (attaboy!) and a family full of smiles…